


Nightlight

by Titania de la Mer (Titania_de_la_Mer)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Series, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 19:50:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4492458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Titania_de_la_Mer/pseuds/Titania%20de%20la%20Mer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully awakens and returns home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightlight

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Mulder and Scully. But I do own the Barbie doll versions of them.

The night is dark and the road is unfamiliar. She trudges along the shoulder, kicking up dust, as she goes. Fields stretch out on either side of the highway, flickering gold every time a car passes.

“Mulder!” she calls, but her voice joins the wind, rushing over cornfields and rustling in the trees.

She spins, searching for signs. He was just here, but now he is gone. Spinning again and again, the fields blur into one another, becoming one great edgeless expanse. Realizing, suddenly, that she is lost, she falls to the ground, dizzy, disoriented and defeated.

A vehicle approaches, its headlights blinding her, as she crouches amongst the pebbles and dirt. Terrified, she freezes in place and does her best to camouflage into the ground. She can’t let them save her– not before she finds him.

“Hey, Scully!” Astonished, she looks up, shielding her eyes from the truck’s high beams. A familiar silhouette is framed by white light and her spirit soars when she recognizes who it is. Relieved, she runs to meet him. Through the glare, he appears to her as he was, when they first met. His eyes are alive with wonder and mischief and his hair is soft against his forehead. She reaches out to touch it.

“Mulder!” she says, out of breath. “You disappeared.”

“Scully,” he greets, smiling. “Did you see that?”

“What, Mulder?” Her heart is racing, bursting with an excitement she hasn’t felt for years.

“Follow me,” he yells, already on his way. At his heels, she sprints to the top of a dark, dusty hill. Exhausted by the time she reaches the top, she raggedly sucks in a gallon of crisp midnight air.

“Hurry, Scully!” he shouts, from a distance. She pauses, hanging her head between her knees. Her limbs ache. Her heart hurts. Her nose is dripping.

Blood.

“Scully!” He runs to rejoin her, as she wipes her blood onto dry grass. There must have been a drought in the region, she muses, as her hands scrape against the straw-like texture.

“I can’t, Mulder,” she sighs. “I’m sick.” She stands up to face his disappointment and is surprised to see that he is laughing.

“No, you’re not, Scully!” he says, grinning from ear to ear. He grabs her wrist and pulls her along a well-trodden path. It feels like flying, she decides, even though, surely, she has never known what it feels like to fly.

He takes her to a clearing and points. “Look, Scully,” he says. “They’re dancing.” Seven – no, eight – neon balls of light circle above them, as though a giant court jester was juggling, from the plains, down below. “Do you see?”

“I see it, Mulder,” she gasps, amazed. “It’s so beautiful.” Spellbound, she watches. A cold wind breezes past her, but she keeps her eyes glued to the sky. After what could be a moment or an eternity, the lights begin to fade and she feels a surge of sadness as they vanish into the abyss.

She is alone again.

“Mulder!” she begs, panicked, her plea drowning in tears. “Mulder!”

“It’s okay, I’m right here,” says a voice from behind. Turning around, she spots a well-lit farmhouse at the base of the hill. In their haste to catch the lights in the sky, they must have missed it, on their way up.

“Mulder?”

“No, Mom, it’s me.” She squints, trying to make out his features. Tall…brown hair… barely fifteen. She wishes she could make-out the color of his eyes. They were blue, she remembers. Like her own. Babies’ eyes can still change shade, up to nine months, at least, she reminds herself.

“William?” she asks, her vision still hindered by darkness. If only she could see him.

“Come home, Mom,” he says, lightly, with a voice she’d know anywhere. It’s his father’s voice, only higher – yet to be burdened by the weight of time. Turning away from her with a youthful exuberance befitting of his teenage years, he gallops down the hill, before she has the chance to find out if his eyes are still blue.

Down and down, he runs. Although she tries her best to keep up, to her immense frustration, she keeps lagging behind. Suddenly, a sharp pain cuts through her abdomen and she is forced to stop and rest. Spiraling downwards, he gets smaller and smaller, away from her.

“Wait!” she cries, gripping her side as the cramp intensifies. Keeling over, she takes a breath. Once, twice, three times – willing the pain to subside. Something is sticky against her palm.

Blood. Gasping, she instinctively touches a finger to her nostril, in an effort to stop the flow, and yet, her hand remains clean. Surprised, she jumps at the implication, scanning her body for wounds. A thin red line trails down her calf, ending in a dried-up teardrop. Her eyes follow it backwards, up along her inner thigh and in between her legs.

“What…?” Ice courses through her veins, as she furrows her brow and tries to understand. Blood is caked within her pantyhose.

Anxious to keep him within her sight, she looks up to see him, now at the bottom of the hill. He waves to her from the farmhouse. She raises her arm to wave back, but before she can say goodbye, he disappears inside, turning out the lights.

And once again, the night is dark.

 

She stands in the doorway, as her pupils adjust. An otherworldly neon glow emanates from the nightlight she’d placed in the hallway, right before she’d left.

“I’m awake,” he mumbles, from the bed, responding to her unasked question.

Pulling back the sheets he never uses, she crawls in next to him and burrows her face into his back. She breathes in deep, drawing him inside of her. Once, twice, three times. With every exhale, she laments their feeble human bodies that make it impossible for her to every truly get her fill.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks her, turning around and scooping her up into his arms.

“Mmm,” she replies, as his mouth descends onto hers.

“That’s okay,” he teases. “I was waiting up.” It’s after three in the morning and she hasn’t been home for eighteen days.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers.

“I’ve missed you too.”

She knows that she owes him an explanation, but when she tries to give him one, only a sob emerges, in its place. He shakes his head and presses two fingers into her lips. Unable to accept defeat, she shakily inhales and tries again.

“I’m sorry,” she chokes as his lips caress her eyelids.

“You drove all the way here, in this?” he asks, ignoring her apology as his fingers gently release the buttons of her pajama top.

She laughs softly, loving him for his way of always knowing how to put her at ease.

Satin slides off her shoulders and is tossed aside. His hands work with such care and devotion, as though undressing her were a ritualistic act of worship.

Skin to skin, at last, they hold one another, in the dark. Neither of them utters a word, as they settle into one another. Intimacy is unconscious, for the two of them, albeit never routine. As partners they’d learned how to make love, years before sharing a bed. His hands mold her body into its truest form, smoothing out the edges until she is free to live as she was meant to be. By now, he has found her so many times that his touch is steeped in memory.

He pushes. She resists. Sighing. No, Mulder. There’s no such thing as ghosts. He prods her gently and she lets him take her with him. Come on, Scully. It’ll be a nice trip to the forest. She smiles. She loves him, but she won’t say it. Not yet. He senses her hesitation and makes a bad joke, provoking her to laugh, in spite of herself. He pushes again. Harder, this time. Oh, God. She follows him, as he expected her to, all along. Exhilarated, her heart thumps, yearning to liberate itself from its corporeal confines. Before long, she’s gone, lost within him. Embodying his search for the truth, she knows him, inside-out.

She pushes. He resists. Groaning. No, Scully. Science has nothing to do with this. She muffles his protests with a kiss. Before long, the rest of the world disappears and it’s just the two of them, together, in the dark. Nothing else matters, anymore.

They hold one another, knowing that their time is running low. Life is fragile, fleeting, unfair. His hands caress her abdomen and the memory of the life they made together ripples throughout her body and into his. She tries to escape it, but he tightens his hold.

Safe, once more, she begins to feel herself slipping away. She lets it happen, knowing that, no matter where she ends up, he’ll know where to find her.

“I love you.”

He kisses her damp cheeks – one and then the other – as he catches his breath. “You going to stay a while?” he asks, in jest, although she knows that his whole life hangs on her answer. Reading her mind, or the expression of guilt washed across her face, he soothes her. “I understand,” he says, pushing a strand of hair off her forehead.

She doesn’t deserve him, she thinks.

“Shh,” he hushes, once again, reading her thoughts. “I love you.”

“I’m coming home,” she whispers and he smiles, pulling up the covers he never uses and kissing her goodnight.

“Were you really waiting up?” she asks, as her eyelids close.

“Nah,” he murmurs sleepily into her hair. “I was already awake.”

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks, yawning.

“No,” he replies, as his arms encircle her in an embrace. “Too many dreams.”


End file.
